Hey Y’all!
Sunday is Transfiguration Sunday. Jesus goes up on the mountaintop with Peter, James and John for a little get away that turns into something they never expected! Not in a million years. So, this week I’ve been thinking about mountain trips. When I was a kid growing up in Bowdon, my mom worked at Sewell’s in the Pants Shop. Sewell’s vacation week was, as I recall, always the week of July 4. We didn’t go every year, but I can remember packing up my little Samsonite overnight bag, climbing in the backseat of the car (with my mother’s pimento cheese sandwiches and fried chicken and pound cake snuggled in around my sister and me) and heading to the mountains. I was always so excited! My bag was packed by the middle of June and I was imagining all the things I would see.
Mountain laurel and sweetgum, mountain creeks rolling over smoothly worn down rocks, rushing water bouncing around and sparking in the sunshine, winding roads and beautiful views, people walking the sidewalks of Gatlinburg eating taffy and fudge and funnel cakes……..maybe even seeing a bear or two! I have been to “the mountains” many times since those days, but never have I even begun to feel the magic I did then.
What is it about those moments? Those moments in our lives when we see everything so clearly. When the world around us is new and bright and beautiful and everything seems just as it should be? Or at least as it could be. I think those moments on the mountaintop change us. They make us hungry for more. They make us want to seek out the beautiful in life, the good, the better way. Sometimes seeking the better way is a piece of pound cake. Other times it is the hardest thing we have ever done. Seeking the good often takes courage – and it is often a job that requires help. It requires help from beyond. It requires a climb up the mountain. And when we are open to it, something magic happens to us. And we grow.
Just like we go up the mountain, we have to come down. The vacation has to end. But, I discovered there were sweetgum in Bowdon. There was a wonderful and gurgling creek in Banning Mills. There was a view at Blackjack Mountain not far from where I lived that was every bit as pretty as North Georgia. There are glimpses all around us of goodness and beauty and love (and yes, even magic) if we only trust that the God of light who created it all is with us, taking us on walking trail after walking trail and adventure after adventure. You can find the story of Jesus’ mountain trip with his boys in Mark 9:2-9. Hope you will read it and when you do, close your eyes and imagine! See you Sunday!